For my final project I wanted to dive deeper into a representation of self and make a sort of letter to my childhood as well as my teenage hood. In the art I create I rarely include myself but it’s been interesting exploring that side. I am an only child so I feel a great connection towards the friendships I’ve built, they’ve become a huge part of my life filling the void of siblings. They feel like a part of my identity. And with these friendships we’ve all basically grown up with each other and with that came the realization of fear. Fear of growing up. I think that fully hit when graduating high school, that when your adulthood starts to build. The more serious it gets and it feels like all the decisions you make have more consequences. Especially now being at the cusp of 20, it truly feels like a new chapter of uncharted waters. The lyric from “Teenage Dream” by Olivia Rodrigo feels most fitting, reading, “They all say that it gets better, it gets better the more you grow, but what if I don’t”. A few weeks ago I attended Olivia Rodrigo’s concert at Madison Square, hearing that song live with my mom was an experience like none other, reminiscing on times that felt simpler, happier, and almost magical. It’s funny that as kids we can’t wait to grow up and have that freedom but once we get it we just want to go back and enjoy more of our childhood. I think that song fully captures the feeling I wanted to achieve with my piece, a sort of melancholy feeling.
Something that I cherish so much is that I am able to look back on my life through pictures. Even if memories fade you might have pictures that make it feel as though, “We can remember moments and almost feel like we are reliving it through a different lens. (Susan Sontag) My walls are covered in different types of pictures, ranging from photo strips to polaroids, all from different eras of my life. “I never quite know what inspired me, other than the moments where I did see and take in art.” (Edra Soto) To me life is art, a performance and it’s one that is unique to each and pictures is a way to capture that art. It’s clearly inspired me to make art about it too.
Even though I’ve experienced so many wonderful things in my childhood and teenagehood and am very aware that my adulthood will also have many wonderful moments, there's still fear. Fear of messing up and making wrong decisions but what’s life without those things, right? Growing up is difficult to deal with but it’s nice to know that the good times are only beginning. At the end of the day, like Marina Abramovic said, “Ideas come from life.”
I made a collage with all pictures of me with either family or friends, and used rhinestones, holographic paper, letters from magazines, rose decorations, and a bow ribbon. I was mainly inspired by Hannah Hoch in the sense of wanting to do a collage but I drew away from her surrealism side. With my own research, I discovered this artist on Instagram that goes by the username of doodlelingyou, mainly using rhinestones in their work and inspired me to use a lot of rhinestones. As well as a graphic designer, Kel Lauren, who has always been one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to art. Their art is very colorful and jampacked with images or text and I wanted to included that in my piece
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| "Letters Address To Younger Me" |
Work Cited:
Force, T. L. (2022, July 8). Being Marina Abramović, even when no one’s looking. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/t-magazine/marina-abramovic.html
Sontag, S. (n.d.). Susan Sontag. http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/onPhotographyExerpt.shtml
Soto, E. (2022, July 1). Performance, pedagogy, and philosophy. Hispanic Executive. https://hispanicexecutive.com/shaun-leonardo/
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